//------------------------------//
// Chapter 27: Fiat Equo 
// Story: When the Everfree Burns 
// by SpiritDutch 
//------------------------------//

Sel Lech wasn't sure how he was doing what he was doing. From those first days when he promised Twilight Velvet he was willing to do anything for her, to the confusing afternoons in the Old Town making plans, to now that he was a guard Captain.  It was a steady slide into acts and plans any sane pony would revile.


When the city guardsponies came marching into the throne room, eager and cocksure, Sel still didn't feel it was too late to go back. But it was getting to that point, where he would no longer be able to tell himself that the worst was yet to come and thus potentially avoidable.

"How do those guns feel?" He asked. "Heavy? Powerful?"

"Pretty good." The city guardsponies murmured in agreement. "But when do we get to use them. We want to weed out those worthless louses, the Speakers."

"Soon. Every moment we're getting closer to a better Canterlot." Sel promised. "Look around the room. Lady Velvet has preformed a miraculous feat, and attracted the factions to our side."

Rain Gnash and Hauseway, the object of Sel Lech's presentation, stared silently on their side of the dais.

"We're united in common purpose." Sel continued. You have no idea how happy I am to be a part of this, and I hope you all are too."

"That's all very good and well, but we'd like some, how you say, action." The guard sergeant chuckled. "We've marched those prissy nobles all the way here from the garden. They're just outside the door, like dopey fawns. They don't even know what's comin to them." His smile hardened. "Come on captain, let us bring them in here, one at a time, and pay them back for their years of lording over us."

Shouts of agreement came from the back of the guardspony ranks.

"You don't have to worry. We aren't going to renege on you." Sel bowed his head. "Everypony is going to face justice today."
At the foot of the throne, Twilight Velvet's assembled ponies drew their swords.
Sel smiled thinly. "I'm sorry. There's no place in Canterlot for your hatred. It can only damage the collective dream."

"Captain?" The guardsponies shifted in confusion.

"This will be difficult for me." Sel drew his own sword. "I've never hurt a pony worse than calling them a bad name. I'll try not to make it last to long. I'll really try."



Now it was too late to go back.
The slaughter began.



“Spare me! I beg of you!” The guardspony was no threat: Disarmed, ribs cracked and tendons sliced. But after several seconds of exploring the helpless pony’s pleading eyes, Night Light twirled his sword around and beheaded him all the same.

“Pace yourself my lord.” Sel Lech called from where he was locked in his own duel. Sel was smaller than the guard, but seemed to be moving quickly enough to negate the force his opponent struck with.

Night Light made to help Sel, but the young captain waved him off. “Help the admiral.”

Acceding to that logic, Night Light turned away. Up towards the throne, Rain Gnash and Hausseway were tearing through the guardsponies who had run to the back of the room to try to get their arquebuses working. Gnash might have been a chunky pony, but she was still a professional swordspony from her time as an IHG knight. Her swordpoint zipped through the air, nicking off limbs and piecing into organs, Hausseway was on the back hoof though, the wound Night Light had caused him months past hurting his already poor swordsponyship.

Night Light spared a glance to his wife as he moved. She was at the end of the throne room by the door, her telekinesis choking the guard sergeant. She waved him around like a doll while she eulogized. The nobleponies of the Estates on the other side of the door could probably hear her meaningless chanting.
For her prey act like she wanted, she needed them to be in a substantial amount of fear.







If a pony looked out from the northernmost castle tower, they would have a good view of the side of the side of the central keep. At the top the angle was slightly too high to see into through the glass windows of the throne room, but if arcs of magic or dead ponies were falling off it’s sides, it would be clearly visible.


“My gods, what is happening over there?” Cadence hadn’t been able to look away from the small battle. 
She had been fretting from the privacy and security of her private quarters , which encompassed the tower, ever since the Imperial Household Guard disappeared from their posts earlier in the day.  Nopony had any news about Shining Armor. Then the castle staff began filtering away, terrified that they may get caught up in the political drama.
She had happened to notice the line of nobles being led from the gardens into the castle. She wasn't sure what was happening. Were the Estates being convened already? It was days too soon, and with Celestia gone...
She hadn't had time enough to draw a conclusion before ripples in the aura out of the throne room reached her. She detected pain, shock, agony, and death. 

“This is mad. Completely mad.” She was hyperventilating slightly. “Where is Shining Armor? He could...  Oh goodness!" She whimpered. "Why did Celestia leave us to this? What's happening?"



The door to the stairwell creaked open behind Cadence. She whipped around to confront the intruder.
Councilor Prosser leaned against the doorframe, a conflicted look in his eyes.

Cadence rushed up to him. “Councilor! Some crazy ponies are in the throne room, killing all the guards!”

“Yes...  I've just come from there. Made some parting excuses, some little promises, and the like.” Prosser said.

“And there’s no royal guards anywhere!” Cadence continued. “I know it’s foalish, but I’m too afraid to leave the tower. We need to get help!”

“There’s nothing to-”

“Or maybe I could fly! Yes yes! I could fly fast and they might not catch me! I’ll go to Cloudsdale, get help there and-”


Prosser leaned forward and gave a quick kiss on Cadence's cheek. Shocked, the junior princess jumped back.

“What… Councilor?” She put a hoof to where she’d been pecked, and stared up at him.

“Princess, I'm very, very sorry for that.” Most unnervingly, the unflappably facetious Prosser was nervous. "There's no certainty that this night won't end with all of us dead."

“C- councilor...” Cadence stuttered. She glanced over her shoulder to where the battle in the throne room continued. “What are you talking about?”

Prosser hung his head. “Princess, can't an alicorn like you feel what's about to come? We are coming apart. Each one of us, splitting like a bulb to let a horrendous and depraved flower bloom." He gulped. "She's going to come after you, once she's done down there. I can't let that happen to you. The dream of Equestria can wilt but you must go on."


Cadence felt a chill rising up her spine. “H- Have her way with me? Councilor, p- please tell me what that means.”


“That thing inside Velvet. I... I hesitate to call it a dream. It's more than that. It's more like you, and I've felt it.” Prosser confessed. “I truly did believe that the natures of alicorn and pony were incompatible! I really did. But Velvet is proving to me how profoundly ignorant I really am."
He giggled, manic. "Is it a god? I don't know! The others in that room certainly have come to believe so. A diety they can touch, a replacement for Celestia even.  Oh merciful ava, it's going to kill us."

Cadence watched him fall to the floor with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

The earth pony crawled along the ground, groveling. “Astral Nacre! Astral Nacre!  There was a god above gods they call by that name!  Oh... I don't understand Velvet...  Was she an alicorn once, or stole the dream from one? Or is she  some fell beast older than Equestria. Or is she... is she..." He twitched. "Most frightening of all, is she a pony who made that dream herself? Oh lament that it is even possible that ponies with that much strength could exist among us! We're doomed. How can society exist when there are those who can obliterate whole cities at a whim." 
He looked up at Cadence, begging for her to understand. "You can't fight her. Celestia might have been able to, but she's left us to Velvet. We're hers now. This is a...  twilight city." He crawled forward along the ground, and Cadence backed away. "I believed in the dream of Equestria! It was everything to me! What nourishment could Velvet's dream province me in comparison, twisted and evil as it it? How am I supposed to surive in a city that had bought into her madness? How? HOW?!"


Cadence had backed herself against the window, but Prosser was nearly to her now. His eyes were wide, desperate. “I’m old to you, I know. Almost twice your age. When I came to Canterlot I thought I could be the young cynic forever, but only Celestia has youth everlasting. It’s terrible to admit…    but I…    I...”

Prosser nearly choked as he spoke. “I like you. And I like Twilight Sparkle too. I want to help you because of the way I feel about you. That's a wretched thing I know. Celestia save me, I've fought on the side of virtue for too long not to realize that I have the soul of a sinful pony. I owed this nation for having a place for me, but it's beyond my ability to save. I tried. Please, I tried. I could only save you and Twilight Sparkle."

Struggling to back away further, Cadence caught Prosser’s shoulder with her hoof. He winced and let her go. “Twilight was next! If Velvet didn’t furfill Astral Nacre, Twilight would be the next to bear that accursed dream. A- And you! The dream necessitates your destruction, to remove the other alicorns from this world! I begged, and I gave her my life’s service in exchange for yours. Princess, Princess! Please forgive me! Please forgive my submission to evil!"


But Cadence was gone. Out through the window of the tower, and into the night sky of Canterlot. Fighting for altitude for the first minutes, she rested on a thermal and let it carry her north. She was shaking, Prosser’s words replaying in her head. She let them, for there was enough time on her journey to sort out her thoughts. Away from Canterlot she would go, and back to her home hundreds of kilometers away, a quaint village on the Crystal River.
Away from Canterlot, away from her home of so many years she flew. She wept, not only for herself, but for ponykind.  She was too weak to stand up for the responsibility Celestia had placed in her.  The world was going to ache for lack of love, the love of the gods.








“And let there be no mistake, this must be all or nothing.” Velvet intoned. Back and forth before Celestia’s golden throne she stalked, addressing her audience of the noble Speakers. “If one of you wavers, or one of you falters, Equestria will collapse and we will have lost our way. Doom for our nation will follow.”

Like party streamers and balloons, the fresh corpses of the city guards hung here and there: On chandeliers, draped over buttresses, nailed to the pillars with their own weapons. The Speakers seemed horrified and sickened to be made to sit under the grotesque arrangement, but a mix of fear and eagerness held them in place. They still wanted their emperor; It would be unreasonable to back out now.

It was a challenge by Velvet. She challenged them to be anything other than disgusting mockeries of ponykind, to be decent enough to challenge her and the senseless slaughter. But they said and did nothing, waiting for the call of power to reach them. Velvet knew she was vindicated then.

“This commitment I ask of you is only an extension of what I ask of myself. With Celestia gone, who else but you will look after the empire? It is your responsibility to keep the landed aristocracy in line, to uphold our traditional right, and protect the commoners. Understanding this, surely you can see why you need to take the oath before you elect a new empress.” The voice of Twilight Velvet captivated their ambitions and twisted them perfectly. "An oath to a new idea, and a new Equestria. Ponykind will determine its own fate."

“That sounds reasonable to me.” Jet Set nodded to his fellow speakers. “Besides, I looks like you have your former detractors behind this. That clears away a good deal of indecision.”

Rain Gnash, Foaly Flux, Seacrest Blackhorn, and Molar stood to each side of the throne behind Velvet. Hausseway and Fleetfootwere guarding the door.

“Once certain truths were explained to them, they were more than willing to accept this arrangement.” Velvet explained.

Jet Set pursed his lips. “Certain truths? Nothing you haven't told us I hope.”

"No, of course not." Velvet shook her head with a smile. "Everything has been made available to you, this way or that."
A last chance, for the Speakers to look around, to second-guess themselves, to realize what the horrendous and grotesque corpse decorations let on about the mare above them. 


"You're a good pony, Lady Velvet." Jet Set bowed his head. "We certainly are glad to have you here."

“Then it's time, isn't it.” Velvet grinned. "However, this new era dawns with something of an ironic move. This oath I mentioned, it's in an older tongue. One with more meaning."

"Another language?" The Speakers muttered amongst themselves.

Velvet shrugged. "The language spoken in Equestria before ponies migrated here. You see, it has a grammatical nuances that cant be captured in Equestrian. For oaths, there is no better language." She motioned to Rain Gnash and Hauseway. "Sometimes we say things with veiled meanings. Sometimes we lie. That's not possible in the old tongue."

"A language without lies?" One of the Speakers by Jet Set chuckled. "Now I see what ponies say when they accuse you being ever the academic."

"Do me the honor of listening. You don't have to repeat the words, but please hold them in your head. That will be enough." Velvet turned to one of the northward-facing stained glass windows. The moon's pale light filtered through the color glass panels. "And here the irony is taken to its peak. We swear by gods both distant and powerful that we shall never accept their kind dominating us again."  She lifted her hoof, swiping it through the gentle moonbeams.  "Bear your heart to heaven, gentleponies."

The room was gravely silent as Velvet began to chant.
Her utterances were low, guttural, twists of the tongue that produced bizarre sounds like should not have come from a pony. To every pony in the room it evoked immages for an expanse of blue, purple, and black. On the harder consenants, flashes of light and churning movements broke the abyssal stillness.
“Eie n’ soru’y’oun soru’y’us Celestiaan. Set ker jot sor. Celest don’y’fef, eie asp reth q.”
Then it was over.


All the candles in the throne room went out. The moonlight permeated the room, settling like frost on everypony's fur.


Night Light broke the silence. His voice trembled from strain. "Velvet...   There's a god come to watch us...  But it's not Astral Nacre."

Velvet's somber visage cracked. She slowly turned back to the assembled nobles, a mad grin on her face. "Yes." She breathed. "Astral is patient, for now our holy sun has come to watch us put an end to her dream. Her version of fate made you what you are.  A new dream, a new fate..." She curtsied. "We can't escape even in this darkest of nights. Goodbye, friends, ponies, my fellow mortals. The watchword of this twisting night is sacrifice."

The throne room filled with yellow light, not for any magical reason, but because behind Velvet the sun was rising above the horizon.









Awakeness in sleep. Twilight had felt the sensation enough to recognize it. She was in a dream. How or why she had no idea.

Her bed was one of dust, a small depression in a cratered and craggy grey landscape. The sky offered no light to the ground, but was alive with a million tiny pinpricks of stars. Dominating the horizon was a grand blue ball, the Equestrian planet.


In a shower of silver-blue magic, the lithe form of Nightmare Moon reconstituted at Twilight’s side. 

“It would be a beautiful sight if I didn’t have to suffer it every day.” Moon said wistfully. “The same held true a thousand years ago, when I looked longingly up at my dear Luna, and wished that all the world could revel in her light. Honestly I’m not sure I care for her powdery highlands any more.”


“What am I doing here?” Twilight hazily asked. She experimented moving her body. Was she really there? It wasn't clear.

“Distressing and depressing me, and my hopes of escape.” Nightmare Moon said. “A battlefield is not the best place to go unconscious.”

“A battlefield…”






A Minute Earlier

“Why would you agree to fight with us if there's no hope. If that's true we should run away.” Rarity was saying. “There is no reason to stay here.”

Twilight shook her head. “I have the whole armor, which I can use to reach out to Nightmare Moon, but I have to do it from here."


“Damn you Twilight! Do you want to get us killed?” Applejack exclaimed.

“If I fight Princess Celestia, then...” Twilight let out a breath. “It's only so I can extend my life long enough to explain that the ponies of Ponyville are not culpable in this. I mean, that's all I can try to do."

Dash grunted. “Think you can take the heat off us as well?”

“You can run if you want to, and I wouldn't blame you.” Twilight said.

“She's calling us out.” Rarity ran a hoof through her flowing black mane. “Not a minute ago you were solid in your dedication to keeping yourself alive, and now you are resigned to death."

"And the difference is Princess Celestia. Maybe you don't, or can't understand what she is." Twilight shot back. Was this how she was spending her last minutes, trading potshots with a nightmare creature?  "She is an alicorn. THE alicorn. You should be afraid. She's won't." She stopped mind sentence, a jolt running up her spine. The nightmare ponies may have been more attuned to the Light and Dark, but there was no mistaking the aura she detected soaring over the forest towards them. The princess the sun. "She's here."

The nightmares turned the direction she was looking. The collapsed roof exposed the roiling clouds in the sky above. They were completely exposed.

"Can't see her." Dash squinted. "Damn rain."

"She's still a kilometer off." Twilight tried to keep her breathing even. Her heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. "Eight hundred meters."

A wind blew through the ruined throne room, making ripples on the puddles of rainwater.

"Five hundred meters. There's no way she can't feel us now." Twilight gulped. "Three hundred. She's right on the other side of the chasm."

"I'm gunna piss myself." Dash squeaked.

"Hold it together." Applejack said sternly. "We haven't even seen her yet."

"She's stopped." Rarity shivered. "I can... I can feel her watching us."



“UNHOLY NIGHTMARES, THE HOUR OF YOUR RUINATION IS ATTAINED!” The rolling boom of the voice above was only matched by the groan of the forest under that audio assault.

Twilight's limbs felt weak. "I- I- I- S- Sorry." She stuttered.

"I refuse to die like this!" Rarity around and shook Twilight. "Get a grip! You can survive this night! With all your will, and the power of that armor, you can win! Believe this!"

Twilight desperate mewls dissolved into little sobs. "H- How! This awful night... How am I meant to fight it!"

"We fight against fate with every ounce of our being!" Rarity was yelling into her face. "That's what being a pony is about. That's what the Dark is about! We fight, and we strive! No matter what!"







“Urg.” Twilight cradled her head in her hooves. “My head. It hurts so much, like I'm scrambled. What happened to me?”

Nightmare Moon clicked her tongue in a pessimistic appraisal. “As of this moment nightmare has a hold of your body. Your mind, forced out of it’s home, has taken refuge in my armor. Just as I manifested in my dreams as a ghost of sorts, so you now appear in mine.”

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut until the pain behind them decided to tolerable levels. “How did this happen? I was doing so well. I fought with all my might, but still...  I lost. Fate won.”

“Don't despair. It is still your body. You can take it back if the Nightmare's grasp it threatened, such as if by a certain Dark ritual, or a blow from a sister of mine.” Nightmare Moon mused.







A sweep of air was all the warning the trio of nightmare ponies had. Dash jumped away just as the white hooves of the ambusher rocketed downwards, but not far enough to avoid the shower of rock flakes that exploded out from the collision site. Nor was she quick enough to dodge Celestia’s hind leg, that was kicked out at her immediately after touchdown.  Dash was sent spinning away, howling in pain.

Immediately, the sun princess’s attention was taken by the two other nightmares jabbing towards her with intent to perforate. Celestia conjured a small magical buckler, which absorbed the punches by shattering extraordinarily. 

Her counterattack, a sweep of her horn which pierced the air with ethereal bolts, was generally avoided by Rarity and Applejack. A light spell by Rarity failed to distract Celestia long enough for Applejack’s buck, which landed squarely on her flank, to do more than slide her along the slick ground.

Celestia’s response, a flurry of magical arrows, overwhelmed Rarity’s novice attempt at a shield, sending her running behind a column.


“Son of a whore!” Dash was reeling from Celestia’s earlier kick, her shoulder grossly misaligned with it’s socket. But within moments, the joint dissolved and reformed anew, as perfect as the shadowy magic could make it. She picked herself off the ground and charged back in.

Dash’s reintroduction to the fight caught Celestia off guard. Forced to turn to face the flanking attack, Celestia was unable to do more than slow Applejack’s rushing headbut. Celestia tumbled, but changed the direction of her momentum with a wingbeat. Taking to the air, she circled the throne room at a hundred hooves’ distance, occasionally creating another imprecise arrow volley.

“Lady Sparkle it’s now or never! Pull yourself together and die like you mean it!” Rarity yelled from behind her cover.  White bolts of magic tore out a chunk of rock above her. "TWILIGHT!"



Twilight, eyes hardly focussed, watched the princess circling around them.
She was here. Celestia was really here. Like the first sight of land after months at sea, Twilight felt overwhelming relief and sorrow at the same time.  Celestia’s movement, determined and steeled face, her hooves and magic moving with deadly intent, all were seen, and understood. There would be no mercy for nightmares.

Fear. Fear of death and the cessation of being. As soon as Celestia finished with the other three, she would turn to Twilight. Perhaps saddened or disgusted, she would end Twilight life to clean the world of the latest intrusion of the nightmare. It would take little more than a single hoof, the lightest touch, and the thing that had been Twilight Sparkle would be erased.

"I'm going to die." Twilight got closer to hyperventilating with every breath. The edges of her mouth frothed. "I'm going to die  I'm going to die  I'm going to die..." 



Twilight, you don't have what it takes, do you. What a shame. You are wonderful specimen, truly. Given more time, you could have been the one to carry our dream forward. It could have been you who took a hold of god and tore out her secrets.

Would you like me take over? Would you like the story to go on?

It's not so big a thing.








“I don't understand. Non of it makes sense, based on the rules you established.” Twilight mourned. “The nightmare, that has taken over my body, was too much for me. I should have know I’d never win against her. She is, after all, me but more.”

“It's not out of the question our darkness will consume Celestia and Equestria.” Nightmare Moon didn’t seem very interested in alleviating Twilight’s guilt. "Congratulations. That's an amazing acomplishment.

“Celestia’s more than a match for the nightmare, even if they act in concert.” Twilight sighed. “Which means my body dies. Rarity, Applejack, and that pegasus Dash too.  I've led us all to destruction.”

“If the rules are changing, then pursue to know why.” Moon said. “The nightmare wants your collusion, your collaboration even. Ask yourself why it does not destroy you. What does it gain by your survival that it does not by devouring you."

"I don't know."

"Consider that it left those three ponies intact."

"I have! You think I haven't been thinking about this?" Twilight said gruffly. "Among the million other things that were on my mind. Yeah, I considered that. It told me nothing. It's all pointless. I'm dead anyway. I'm a...  an orphaned soul, here on the moon with you." Twilight rubbed her temple. "The nightmare played me like a fiddle. My fear overwhelmed me, and it took control."

"As I said, do not surrender. There is hope. That armor yet connects your body to the moon." Nightmare Moon said.



Twilight wasn't so optimistic. In fact, she just felt empty and tired. She had been galloping and teleporting around since mid afternoon, gotten into a fight, killed a changeling, all under the unrelenting rain.  That was enough strain to last a pony a lifetime. it was no wonder she froze up. Her mind had no more bravado and willpower to throw forth.
She looked over the featureless grey expanse of the moon. She remembered the things Nightmare Moon told her about living there, about yearning to return to the earth. She could understand that sentiment, yet there was a beauty to the stark landscape as well.  If she had to spend eternity there, it would certainly lend itself to a contemplative existance.
“I’m still a pony, aren’t I?”

“I should say so. You have retained your dream, and isn't that what makes the pony” Nightmare Moon rumbled.

“The dream makes the pony." Twilight agreed. "I...  I saw the dreamer in you, Moon, the pony underneith. That first night the nightmare was driving me, I spoke to a kind, worried creature. She talked me out of my madness and helped me last until now."

“We all have moments of weakness.” Moon gazed at the blue orb of Equestria.



“I won’t pretend that sometimes I miss the grass, or the way light reflects of dew on the leaves of the trees.”

“You're kinda like those Rarity and Applejack. There is a pony painted over in nightmare tones. When I speak to you, I speak to her. And that makes me feel happy.” Twilight smiled. "Not that I don't appreciate you, oh Nightmare of the Moon, but everything I like about you is something you took from her."

“The Dark is a mysterious thing.” Moon grunted.

“It's an aspect of magic, of making a different fate than what the sun creates for us.” Twilight pressed, shifting closer to the alicorn. “There are roles laid out for us. As a nightmare, yours is to consume, to destroy, to parasitize from the dreams of ponykind. You did that to me, to that dream we shared of the throne room.  But somehow you began to tolerate me, talk with me, confess even.”

“What do you want?” Nightmare Moon barked. “Do you want me to say it? Would that make you feel better, for me to say that I valued your company; That I would be saddened by your death; That when we conversed, I felt not as though we were one and one, but two? Does that give you satisfaction, Twilight Sparkle, that you’ve worn away at the skin and sinew of my breast enough to expose my heart?”


“I”m happy, Moon. But it’s because I’m happy for you.” Twilight smiled weakly. “The nightmare is the antithesis of ponykind. To destroy her, we must embrace our commonality, and our bond as ponies.”

“Please don’t continue, you’ll upset my stomach.” Nightmare Moon almost smiled back, but looked away again. “But now I see, you begin to understand. Ponykind is not a tribe or species, it is a state of being. The dream rests on a fragile bed above a well or horror. When that state of being is broken, many unpleasant things begin to see through the cracks. Two ponies form an impermeable barrier. One and one ponies are stepped around, twisted and wrapped within the seeping feelers of the malign.”

“Say friendship.” Twilight teased. “Can you say it?”

“Said the pony who refers to ‘acquaintances’ “ Nightmare shot back, and Twilight cringed in embarrassment. “You may well have more to learn than I. Save for one particular dragon, that is.”

Twilight’s ears shot up. “Do you mean… Spike!  What do you know?” She asked urgently.

“Your friend is alive. As he was moved close to the altar, I felt is presanse. Strongly did he feel certain things, above them all a profound fworry for you, Twilight. You would be disappointing him to fail now.”

“That horrible thing, Chrysalis.” Twilight hissed. “Why didn't you tell me about her if you could detect what happens around the altar?”

"That sense is only a recent thing, sinse your dream disconnected from the altar. That was perhaps two hours ago?" Nightmare Moon paused, as if she was concentrating on something far away. “But before that moment, there was a surge of power like even an alicorn would fear, from somewhere on your side of the dream link.  The nightmare has been playing havoc with your dream, Twilight. I fear it has been made into a tool, or weapon, or worse.

“Rarity and the other nightmare ponies kept talking about a Tower.” Twilight digested Moon’s words. Her pulse quickened. "It wouldn't have to do with the ritual, would it?"


“Possibly." Moon shrugged. "Are you familiar with the structure of your own dream?"

"I, um..." Twilight bit her lip. "No. Celestia warned me against it."

"Now why would that be." Nightmare arched a brow. "My sister knew, I bet. Nothing would have bother her more, than to see a pony with a dream with the potential to do something. Something like destroy her." She grinned sinisterly. "Oh delightful, delightful. Twilight Sparkle, could it be that this is not a deviation from the path of your life, but the ultimate purpose of your existance?  A dream, a promised dream, the likes of which can only be imagined!"

Twilight was starting feel uneasy. "I don't get what you're saying."

"Because you're in denial. Ha hA! Oh Twilight, you should be overjoyed!" Nightmare laughed.

“Overjoyed that I'm going to spend the rest of my existance here with you?” Twilight replied testily. She really didn't understand what Moon was saying. She refused to understand.

"You aren't going to die, Twilight. Not really. The dream makes the pony, and your dream is in the process of being fulfilled right now. A dream to do something great." Nightmare snaked her head around Twilight so they were eye to eye.  "Is this why I have grown infatuated with you? Yes, it must be. The same reason the nightmare moves you but does not destroy you. Twilight..."

Twilight's wide eyes wobbled, while her mind tried in vain to shut out the truth.  What did it mean?

"Your dream is the EMBODYMENT of what it is to be Dark. The nightmare can no more destroy you than it can itself. Its all part and parcel to what has been inside you from your first breaths. Ohh..." Moon churred.  "Do not be sad Twilight, this is a wonderful thing. Forget unearthing the Stars' ritual, its all there. Your dream is a tool of accession."



Twilight pulled herself away. "That's not true. You don't know what you're talking about." She said harshly, tearing up. "Why are you lying?"

Nightmare Moon stared at her in silence. "Hmmm." She dialed back her enthusiasm. "Apologies. Sometimes it is easy to forget you are still a vulnerable little pony. You clearly aren't ready for the truth."

"Whatever." Twilight closed her eyes. "You think you're grooming me towards something don't you. You have to be more honest with me if our relationship is going to work into the unforseen future."

"The power of your ability to delude yourself is impressive." Moon wrinkled her nose. "Keep an open mind, Twilight. I have a feeling it will be a skill beyond all others in the fight to keep you alive."

"And sane?" Twilight questioned. 

Moon gave her a sidelong smile. "Remains to be seen."







A shiver rippled across Twilight’s fur as her nervous system was hijacked by the dark parasite within her mind. The nightmare slowly tested her motion, getting used to physical form once more. The armor of Nightmare Moon menaced as having another nightmare so close, so with a little bounce Twilight shook it all off.

“To breath, to blink, to feel the cold rain...” It moaned, twisting Twilight's voice to perverse inflection. "This is a pony."


She turned her attention to her surroundings, where the sun princess shot barrage after barrage of light at the cowering nightmares.

"Hmm..." It looked up at Celestia, silhouetted again the the dark grey skies. "So begins a marvellous fight."
With a motion of Twilight's hoof, the nightmare dispelled the latest wave of Celestia's magical arrows. “Harken to me, my progeny!" She shouted down the length of the throne room.



Applejack and Rarity peeked over their cover. They saw Twilight Sparkle, a black fog radiating off her, and grimaced. “That’s not good.” Applejack noted sourly. "Chances of returning to normal are dropping fast."

Rainbow Dash scurried from her cover to the other two. “Philosophize later!” The pegasus chirped before jumping behind the next collapsed column.

“So you are going to ignore me. Brave.” A mad smile like that of the horrific manifestations blossomed on Twilight's face face, and she languidly took a step down off the rubble of the altar.   Another volley of arrows from Celestia evaporated with another hoof wave. "So fickle. You would throw yourselves behind Twilight, but not me."


“No hard feelings?" Rarity smiled prettily from behind her shelter behind a ruined wall. "Truce, until our existential threat has passed.”

"Existentially threatening for you perhaps." The nightmare of Twilight chuckled.



Celestia had been thrown off by feeling of her barrages disappearing unanticipated, but when she slowed to feel out the castle a chilling change stopped her dead. Twilight’s magic had disappeared. Not dwindled, or spilled like if she had perished, but disappeared. It was as if a great darkness had planted a drain and drawn all traces of her student from the world.

The great darkness, of the other hoof, had become very, very obvious. Consuming, treacherous, inescapable.
The urge of self-preservation screamed at her to run away. But she had sacrificed so much, everything in fact, to be there. She would see the night through. The death of the dream of Equestria had to be honored with a moment of meaning, didn't it?


Celestia settled on on of the ribs of the rotting structure and scanned the throne room below for the source of the aura.
"Ah! There's Twilight!" She squealed with joy when she saw the little unicorn standing at the front of the throne room. "She's...  wait."
Right behind Twilight was a jumbled pile of armor that Celestia immediately recognized. "What is she..."   Twilight looked up at her.  Their eyes locked.

"Celestia!" The nightmare of Twilight lolled her tongue out. "I quiver to see you. You make me happy. You-"




The world faded. Celestia was no longer above the throne room, or even in the physical world. Her coat was dry and all exaustion was gone.


On a trackless white plain, a brightly burning star lit all the world in inescapable brightness. In the depths of the stellar lamp, Celestia felt a familiar, haunting presence. The presence that spoke not of things that were, but of things to come. It’s voice, as sharp and as smooth, and as high and as low as her own commended the princess’s attention.  It was melodious, but etherial. It was not meant to be heard, but understood.

‘Celestia. You abandoned the dream.’

Celestia lifted her head to that infinate sun. It filled her with warmth to see it, but also fear. She did not want to be there.
"It took you this long to realize?!" She shouted into the featureless white sky. "The dream was dead before I awoke! Not eight-hundred, not five-hundred, not one year ago! Your dream is stillborn."


‘Many things have come to define you over your centuries, my Celestia. Pessimistic is one of them. Are you not disappointed in yourself that you can not be the leader ponykind and Equestria needs.’

“To hell with your Equestria!” Celestia hissed. “You send me premonitions, you send me messages, and I reject it all. I am, I am..." She clenched her jaw. "I dream of things beyond what you dictate for me! I'm a dreamer, a pony! I want to live!"

The sun disintegrated into powder, swirling and blowing along the plain, coalescing and gathering before Celestia. It took on the vague shape of an alicorn like her, hazy and unformed. It's voice emanated from a point inside its form.
“Such is the mistake of not fulfilling the succession, Celestia. It would hurt any mother to tell her daughter that she is a mistake, but you are. You are not meant to exist like you are."

"Damn you." Celestia averted her gaze. "You don't understand anything. You can't even grasp the concept of a mother."

"I can not." The hazy alicorn-esk figure agreed. "Is that a failing? You act as though I am lesser for not sympathising with pony ideas."

"It is." Celestia growled. "You won't ever know what compassion and love is."

"My love is why Equestria exists at all. My love sustained it for a millennium. Your negligence to translate that love has left brought the hoof of mortalkind back to its own throat, where it was when I sent you over a thousand years ago."

"Not me, the first Celestia." Celestia said through bared teeth. "You can't tell the difference between us, but I know. I'm very conscious of it. I won't let myself be succeeded. Not now, not ever. I won't do it!"


"You do realize that if you don't leave now, you are dooming the world." The thing said. "Truly, you will be hurting me and yourself far more than you know."

"Call it youthful rebellion." Celestia sneered. "I've had enough of your guidance."


"How very Dark of you." The thing noted. "So be it my daughter. Our relationship was worthwhile, while it lasted. You cry that I do not distinguish enough between your iterations. Fine. I will make Celestia the Hundredth memorable."  It uttered a sound somewhere between a shreik of laughter and the peal of a resonant bell.  "It is to be war between us, my daughter. You have ruined my empire, all that I care and love. The same shall be your fate.
"Do what you will. You may die, Twilight may die, the planet may die. The paths you take will lead you to exactly what you deserve."

The physical world washed back into Celestia’s vision and other senses. The infinite pure space was gone. God wanted to see her no longer.



Other divine things could not have been happier though, as the nightmare creature below her laughed and laughed.

“In the elder languages, they call you Celestiaan. I like it. It always felt like Celestia had a syllable missing.” Twilight's body said, but Celestia knew it was not her student behind those words. “You know, we thought about you every day. We genuinely missed you. It warms this heart.”

“You have no heart, foul nightmare.” Celestia forced herself to face the visage of her possessed student. Celestia had thought she had come to accept that the ponies around her would come and go, but not for Twilight, not for the innocent and brilliant Twilight. Death had no right to take that promise for the future away from her.

Her mother sun must have lathed Twilight for stealing Celestia's attentions away from Equestria. She had not said it. but the undercurrent was there. Had this fate been wrought by the jealous god, Celestia wondered? Or was that divine ire pointed at Celestia alone?
It was all so unfair, Celestia thought. She knew had robbed Twilight of any choice in the matter. Perhaps Twilight wouldn’t want to be with her, didn't want to be the one for whom Celestia sacrificed all of Equestria. It was the same notion Celestia had been considering on the airship. What if, heaven forbid, Celestia asked Twilight?  But NO, what if Twilight refused? Celestia didn't know what she would do with herself if Twilight rejected her.  Twilight had to accept. She had to, had to, HAD TO.
Perhaps sending her away had been Celestia’s first unconscious recognition and rejection of her tyranny regarding Twilight. Perhaps it was a trick of her unconscious, or just conscience.

None of that seemed to matter now. The arrogant sneer of that enemy nightmare now hung on Twilight’s face.


“The first time we fought a thousand years ago, when this castle was still intact, you gave a great speech about the error of my ways. The years have stunted your manners.” Twilight chuckled.  Rarity and Applejack cautiously moved closer.

Celestia made sure to keep tabs on Dash loitering behind her. It would be foolish to let herself be flanked again. “This castle and this land were already long dead by the time Celestia the first fought Nightmare Moon. Nothing could have saved Everfree from the seeds of suffering and torment planted by the siege.”

“I rather like this new Everfree though. It’s very lush.” Twilight said.

“Forces of evil never relinquish chances for growth.” Celestia said. “They must be trimmed back.”

“Oh Celestia, I find it hard to believe you would trim back your favorite mortal.” Twilight flaunted herself, the inky black mist seeping from her eyes and mouth concealing her curves. “Come to me. This will be quick."


"I-" Celestia paused. She could no longer bare the sight so she closed her eyes. What could she do? Indecision gripped her. It hurt, to do so much for nothing. Twilight could not be lost to her!
"... Nay." She breathed. "The light of justice will burn you out of this world."

"Yes, yes!" Twilight said exultantly. "Bright out every everything! If I can't survive it, I don't deserve to live!"

Those mocking words made Celestia wonder if she was only playing into some larger plan, but she forced herself to ignore it. Rushing rashly as she was, she had to believe the force against her was equally dashed off.
She faced the west and braced herself. She concentrated, trying to summon up more magic than she had in years. With the full force of her mind, she pulled at her sun, fighting to lift it above the horizon. It resisted her like it never had before, trying to hold it’s place. Celestia refused to accept that, and she poured every ounce of her energy into the cosmic match of tug-of-war.
"You're mine to use to illuminate this world." She said between gasps. "Not the other way around!"

After a long tense moment a sliver of sunlight flowed along the cloudtops, seeping muted gold and orange into the black and grey castle. The sun was dawning at midnight.


"Gosh. When Twilight said we didn't understand what we were up against, I think she was right." Rainbow Dash hugged the ground harder. "If I run, what would you guys do?"

Rarity bit her lip, glancing to the eminently confident nigthtmare of Twilight, staring boldly up to the sun princess. "We shall see this through, in Darkness or brillient Light."

"You're too poetic for your own good." Applejack griped.



The higher the sun rose, the more its light filtered down through the clouds and transformed the ruined throne room from a harbor of darkness into a normal space, and the more the nightmare ponies looked out of place.
Above them in defiance of the cold rain, flame rippled and cracked across Celestia’s skin. “Yes. I agree. This will be quickly indeed.”

In the blossoming light, the mist around Twilight faded. The perverse smile shifted to a cordial one, and the blackness in her eyes seemed only illusory. Indeed she looked as pure and lucid as any day Celestia had seen her in Canterlot. "Don't you think this is an overreaction, Princess Celestia? You haven't tried a normal attack on me. Shouldn't that be the starting point?" She cocked her head. "Nice job raising the sun though. Always so stunning."

"I used mercy when last I face the nightmare. I shall have to burn you down through the roots tonight" Celestia tilted her head back to eye the sun. "Ah but it is night no longer. My Summer Sun is here, the longest day."

"You've cheated the world out of its longest night. That won't do." Twilight chided. "And is not the Summer Sun the day of change, renewal?"

"Things will change." Celestia promised gravely.

“So you think you can do it?” Twilight's body asked. “An alicorn like you should have no issue killing me. Destroy this body utterly, so that the very stars cower at your might. End the existence of Twilight. That's what this show of force is about, right?” She twisted her head to expose her neck. "Aren't you still the one who protects your ponies from the Dark?"

"You talk too much." Celestia iridescent mane shifted into spectral yellows as she gathered power for her aggress. “Forgive me, Twilight.” She whispered.







A thousand miles away on the moon, Twilight felt a twinge pulse through her nerves.
"eeshh." She grimaced. "Something is happening. I'm getting phantom pains."

"Concentrate on it." Nightmare Moon urged her, while comforting her with a wing on her shoulder. "See if you can draw out the thought. Get an insight into what the nightmare intends."


Twilight did not have much choice in the matter. Strange sensations felt like pinpricks on her dreaming body, and stranger still were the unwelcome images forcing them into her mind. Indistinct color and shapes danced meaningless dances, hinting at concepts Twilight knew, but never thought to put together. She saw fleeting images of ponies, magical patterns, and unknown symbols.

I know you're watching. Hope you enjoy.


Twilight jerked in shock. What was THAT though? The nightmare knew she was receiving its thoughts?


"S- She's sending me a message." Twilight muttered between shivers. "I- I think it's a s- spell pattern."

She saw three ponies, one of each tribe, standing facing each other. Another pony loomed over them. Strange light danced and raced around them, turning a different color as it passed by the three ponies, then joined all those colors together in the middle.
Twilight could guess what it was, the only thing it made sense to be. The ritual, the only one worth talking about.

"Moon, m- my nightmare has figured out the ritual!" She gasped.


"Of course it has." Moon sighed. "Sure is the nature of its, your, dream."

"NO, Moon, she might cast it or something!" Twilight tried to panic but was hobbled by the continuing visions. She twitched and jolted around as she tried to convince Moon to get serious.  "If she uses it she's going to destroy my body!"

"There is no chance she has enough magical power. Even the twelve Stars could not cast it, and they were the each one of them more powerful than you. No offense." Moon said.


She she spoke, the lunar skyscape shimmered, signaling something fantastic.
From behind the earth, a blinding light peeked out. Happy with its entrance, the sun rocketed through the heavens, disappearing somewhere behind the moon's curvature. Up above on the Bright World, it was clear day had dawned despite the moon's presence.

"That is not good." Moon bared her teeth. "Celestia must be truly desperate if she is ordering around her mother sun like this."

"This is mad." Twilight clutched the sides of her head. "There's two celestial bodies in the sky? H- How can that be?"

Nightmare took a deep breath, turned to Twilight, and snarled like a feral beast. "How DARE you irritate me so with your whining! Have you lost your conviction to live? Insufferable little pony, I did not pull you into the moon's great dream to hear you DEFILE it with your defeatism."

Twilight, scared and surprised, blinked.

"Twilight, what use is a pony who freezes at the first sign of adversity? None!  Thankfully I know you are not that pony." Nightmare stared her in eye, and though her tone was scathing her deep look betrayed an earnest concern totally at odds with the rest of the nightmare alicorn.  "You stood up to me. You stood up to that changeling. You stood up to those nightmare three. What has you so concerned that you falter now?"

"Celestia." Twilight admitted. "She is trying to kill me and it, well, hurts my soul. She used to be everything I cared about. She still is in a lot of ways. Now she hates me."

"Such is the fate of the pony who gains too much power. She becomes polarizing, forcing all to either love or hate her." Moon said with a sniff.  "But within them is the power to bring peace and stability to those they care about."

"Yeah whatever." Twilight pulled out of Moon's grip and threw her a dirty look. "You made your point. Give me time to figure out what the nightmare is planning with the ritual."

"Accession, obviously." Moon smiled, coyly glad to see Twilight angry at her.




But something nagged at Twilight.  “From the snippets I felt, the ritual seems incomplete. It has the framework, and a beautiful one at that, but its devoid of operation or power patterns.”

“You felt the nightmare's thought clear enough to discern that?” Moon Waited for Twilight to nod. “I can only describe what little I know from the Stars. Its name, ritual, is not deception. It is involved, painstaking, spiritual even.”

"Celestia once told me faith can either be mystical or ritualistic, deeply personal or structured by rules." Twilight mused. "But this spell ritual is all rule, no substance. It's missing vital parts to it."

"Then the thought you received is incomplete, perhaps only the instruction manual so to say." Nightmare Moon speculated.

"The missing parts, the operation and power, are on a per case basis." Twilight sucked in her bottom lip.  "With how much everypony harps on about dreams, it is not hard to guess what the operation pattern is informed by."

"A dream of accession, a spell of accession." Moon agreed breathlessly. Twilight was figuring it out.

'And the power..." Twilight sighed. "Tell me about how the Stars used it again.


“After my battle with Celestia in the Everfree Castle, she brought to bear against me an immensely powerful magic that banished me onto the Moon. The radiating energy from that act was enough to fuel the Star's ritual, completing their blasphemous transformations.”

“An immensely powerful magic. Hmmm. The ritual needs a power like only an alicorn can wield.” Twilight contemplated with deepening sternness. “Moon. I'm not the kind of pony who beleives in deep, obscure conspiracies, but it can't be an accident Princess Celestia has come now. She is exactly what the nightmare wanted." She frowned, thinking about the sun that had only a minute ago been shifted back into the sky above Equestria. She tried to focus in on the nightmare's thoughts again, tried to tempt out a meaning, and received only impulses of raw glee that made her head spin.  Her eyes shot open.  "Moon! We have to warn Celestia!"

"Impossible. We can no more reach out to my sister than a foal can walk on the ceiling." Moon dismissed. 

Twilight stomped her hoof in the grey dust in frustration.  "But its a trap, again! Her power is going to be used for the ritual!"






Velvet and her supporters closed in around the crowd of Speakers.


At first, everypony only felt it. It was like a high-pitched whine, inaudible, that made their ears tingle. Moment to moment, it pitched down into a gutteral churn, like straining gears or a pained leviathan, until with a harsh snap, it ended. Then, a jolt. Something was happening. All eyes were drawn to the south.

Celestia, they mouthed in unison.

In witness by everypony in Equestria, a shaft of gilded sunlight bisected the sky, connecting a forested land to the sun for a brief instant. The afterimage lingered, rejecting all doubters that what was seen was anything but a divine act. It was a few seconds before the fiery ray dissipated enterally. In those moments, the throne room was lit up like the inside of a kildescope, with the stained glass refracting the blinding light in marvelous hues and patterns.



“Brilliant isn't it. That's the power of an alicorn. To compete, mortalkind must force ourselves ever high. Willing gods or no, we will create a pony to match the power of the divine.” Velvet purred, rejoicing in the Speaker's terror. "Let's not let this parting go overlong. Goodbye." She motioned to the ponies by her side. "Kill them."







It was like a needle, so infinitely brief, bright, and tall, bringing the light of the sun down to the the chosen ponies of the earth.  By the time the three nightmare ponies raised their hooves to shielded their eyes, it had already passed. After all, more than the briefest of moments and the sun's power would have set the air and earth alight.



From her perch on the ruins roof, Celestia let released a strained breath. As soon as she released her concentration the sun jerked out of her control. Still, the task she had needed it for was over. The touch of the sun lance was enough to evaporate the toughest beasts. Twilight's body was surely destroyed.


But what shoudl have happened was not what Celestia saw.


Wretched black miasma ripped through the air with uncontrolled madness. At the center of it, the body of Twilight hung unscathed by the lance of solar energy. A new darkness issued forth from her mouth, and wretched evil seeped from her eyes.


"OH SHI-" Applejack tried to jump away but a tendril of the obscene magic grabbed her hindhoof and yanked her into the air. So too with Rarity and Rainbow Dash, and the three of them were moved in a circle around Twilight.

The magic weaved through the psyche of those three creatures, three tribes, drawing them together like fish into a net. Dreams splashed across their consciousness, forcing them to see, to understand and interpret by the pony magic still resting within their heart. Dreams of bones pulling themselves free of their flesh, rebelling from life and declaring themselves to grim death, never-ending existence, subsisting off the blood of others. Dreams of a new power, rising from the ossein of the innocent and hopeful, staining her world in lightless obsidian death.



Celestia fought to stay upright as waves of Dark energy slapped into her. Twilight’s nightmare hadn’t just survived her attack, it had absorbed it. The profane ritual whipped up the wind, blowing the rain back up at her. Why did the spell feel like Twilight's magic? Celestia could not tear her eyes away from the roiling core of it, where her poor student was being ripped apart and reshaped over and over.
"This magic is...  " 

She recognized it somehow. The racial memory of Celestia I, the banisher of Nightmare Moon, told her that this was the Stars' ritual. Apotheosis. Accession. Becoming more. That was its purpose.

She bared her teeth, holding back a sob. She had to force herself to be dispassionate: There would be no clean euthanasia for Twilight Sparkle. Hit by hit, Celestia would have to tear her apart to put the nightmare down.
But such power! Celestia could not fear for Twilight's fate any soul, because she would soon be fighting for her own life. "Once more I face the nightmare, become as a god."